World road race championships

Cooke hopes world championship silver will be springboard for Commonwealth gold

A silver medal in the women's world road race championship in Madrid on Saturday has left the Commonwealth Games champion Nicole Cooke optimistic about the defence of her title next spring in Melbourne.

"I have always gone strong in the spring so my form should be all right," the 22-year-old Welshwoman told the British Cycling website. "I am quite fresh mentally and physically. I'd like to go through the winter now training consistently because I don't need time off. I just need to carry on gently and not go berserk."

In the 30-rider sprint that decided the 126km (78 miles) event Cooke finished close behind Regina Schleicher, who gave Germany their second successive win in the discipline at the end of a race controlled by her team and the Italians.

On the mainly flat circuit around the Spanish capital there were no meaningful breakaways and the race was largely a process of selection from behind, with the weaker elements dropping off over the two dragging climbs on each lap.

"It was important to get to the front and stay there, as it was really fast," said Cooke, who never looked entirely at ease and midway through the race needed the assistance of her team-mates to remain with the field.

"I think it was really good that I was able to come second to a fast sprinter like Regina, who had the best train to lead her out. All she had to do was the last 100 metres and so it was all delivered to her.

"Behind her every other rider was involved in a dog fight and I had to cope with a few shoulder barges in there but I held firm so that was good."

In the under-23 event another prospect for Melbourne, the 20-year-old Manxman Mark Cavendish, finished a promising 14th, leading in the main field on the heels of a chasing group which finished 34sec behind the winner, Dmytro Grabovskyy of the Ukraine.

In the men's road race yesterday Belgium's Tom Boonen produced a devastating final sprint to snatch the gold medal. The 24-year-old, who won the Paris-Roubaix and two stages on this year's Tour de France, ran down Spain's Alejandro Valverde in the final 10 metres to claim the rainbow jersey. Valverde added a second silver to the one he won in Hamilton, Ontario, in 2003, and France's Anthony Geslin got ahead of the bunch to claim the bronze in the 273km race.

The peloton had run down a breakaway group going into the final corner, some 600 metres from the finish line, and the Olympic champion Paolo Bettini and Alexandre Vinokourov were the first to show in the final straight. But Valverde and then Boonen roared to the front. Sweden's Marcus Ljungqvist finished fourth, Brazil's Murilo Fischer fifth and Denmark's Jakob Piil sixth.

The pre-race favourites Alessandro Petacchi and Robbie McEwen had the sting taken out of their finish during a frantic final lap of the undulating 21km circuit.

"On the last lap it was very important that several members of the Belgium team were always up at the front," said Boonen. "They worked very hard to catch up on the leaders and set me up perfectly.

"Alejandro started to go for the line about 300m out and I just kept on his wheel and managed to get past him."

There was only pain in Spain for the Great Britain team. There had been hopes that Roger Hammond in particular would get on the podium. However, with three of his compatriots - Tom Southam, Charly Wegelius and Steve Cummings - dropping out long before the finish, Hammond faced an all but impossible job to get in among the medals.

The 31-year-old, who rides for Lance Armstrong's Discovery team, trailed in 25 seconds behind the leaders, and the triple Olympic track medallist Bradley Wiggins was more than six minutes off the pace.